{"id":1832,"date":"2011-05-27T14:43:34","date_gmt":"2011-05-27T18:43:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=1832"},"modified":"2011-05-27T14:43:34","modified_gmt":"2011-05-27T18:43:34","slug":"love-and-breakups-at-the-time-of-social-networks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2011\/05\/27\/love-and-breakups-at-the-time-of-social-networks\/","title":{"rendered":"Love and Breakups at the Time of Social Networks"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared on OWNI, 7 March, 2011<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cRobert, I am leaving you.\u201d In the initial moments after, all Robert could do was replay those words in his head until all the tears he could muster had spilled from his broken heart. Once the shock settled, he could throw himself into the comfort of a bottle of beer \u2013 or harder alcohol depending on the situation \u2013 to drown out his sorrows. Yet the inevitable form of cleansing was obvious, as we\u2019ve all been Robert \u2013 \u00a0he needed to burn (or at least return to the original owner) the knick-knacks, photos, love letters, and the memories that were attached to those objects. He needed to reject the one who no longer wanted him. This is not an easy step to make, but once this purging has been accomplished then the relationship is truly over.<\/p>\n

That was before\u2026and like everything else, yes,\u00a0it was better before<\/em>. Now, Robert must also mange his failed love-life in the digital world. \u00a0It is nothing groundbreaking that our lives are not just physical, but also virtual. So if we raise the question whether our digital accounts will affect the grieving process of friends and family after out death, the same inquiry can be applied to breakups. Social networks have permanently changed the situation, making breakups more painful. A US marketing agency tried to create \u201cbreak up with your ex day<\/a>\u201d on the same day as Valentine\u2019s Day: time to turn the page, unfollow, untag, block, and move on! Wise decision, but breaking digital connections are not the same as breaking ties in real life. The digital world constantly reminds the most desperate and nostalgic of their misfortunes.<\/p>\n

Facebook: the heroine for breakups<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Lucy* had been dumped, and was too quick to take the decision to cut off her torturer from her Facebook profile.\u00a0\u201cI blocked him to avoid being tempted to contact him on his status updates. I knew I would post something or send him a message. It\u2019s childish, I know!\u201d <\/em>Skip to the hater category, a well-known classic in the breakup realm.<\/p>\n

Facebook also expands the breakup problem to the ex\u2019s friends and family. Lucy didn\u2019t want to remove these people, as she found that too childish. She does have the option of using the chrome extension \u201cEternal Sunshine<\/a>,\u201d (named after the movie\u00a0Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind<\/a> that followed the difficulties of a couple trying to forget each other) allowing to hide unwanted people on Facebook without actually unfriending them. Obviously it is cowardly, but it\u2019s less declarative and rude that the classic blocking methods. But Lucy didn\u2019t use this option.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t restrict my access to his profile. It was horrible! For three or four months I was completely obsessed.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lucy saw everything. The photos, the friends he added, the posts \u2013 everything was analyzed. She \u201chid\u201d behind his wall, unable to resist the urge to click onto his profile to get her daily fix. \u201cI had the need for three minutes. It\u2019s like a drug: it\u2019s unhealthy and adds nothing but more pain.\u201d<\/em> Every time she viewed his page, she was breaking the process of a normal recovery. Before Facebook, we would merely stop seeing people and over time become apathetic. \u201cThere was always that temptation of another hit, which results in another crash. With social networks, there is no cure. The wound is always reopened.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Control freak<\/strong><\/h3>\n

If only poor Werther,\u00a0who spent his days staring anxiously into the mountains needing to know everything about his beloved Charlotte<\/a>, knew that actually knowing would not help (Facebook\u00a0certainly proves this in modern times). Would there have been less suffering? Or would Twitter have turned this broken-hearted man into a control freak?<\/p>\n

\u201cTwitter is more vicious,\u201d<\/em> says Louis* who is struggling to return to the single life. As if Facebook is hard enough, Twitter is a completely different monster to tame. \u201cYou see everything. Just search for the person\u2019s name and Twitter shows everything \u2013 what she tweeted, and who responded. It\u2019s crazy. For a long time I logged on several times a day. It was impossible\u00a0to resist the craving. I continue doing it even though I know I\u2019ll feel horrible.\u201d <\/em>Poor Louis. The digital world is eating away at his tiny bit of control, and his browsing history is always there to remind him of his weakness. \u201cI feel stupid when I systematically erase the history \u2013 because I pretend I\u2019m looking at the profile page for the first time, and it eases the pain.\u201d<\/em> A bit of a control freak? Maybe just a jilted lover who can\u2019t turn the page and is further drawn into the past with the\u00a0stalking possibilities<\/a> provided by Twitter, as facing the sudden silence is just too much.<\/p>\n

If we believe that <\/em>digital networks are only an extension of our social life and it just completes the interactions, in the case of a breakup it\u2019s evident that this theory fails to cover the circumstance. ForAntonio Casilli<\/a> (a researcher and author of the book\u00a0Liaisons num\u00e9riques<\/a>)\u00a0the two forms of social links are different: \u201cBefore the Internet, if a person was able to contact his ex after a breakup, then it reaffirmed the strong link that once existed between these two people. With the Internet, this link is not necessarily revived. We can continue to interact with this person, but on the basis of a fragmented signal and thus a much weaker link. The stalker is content with his passive observations. This distinction between strong and weak links may be more effective in articulating the dynamics of these relationships.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

In the case of Lucy and Louis, interpretation is the key element. Antonio Casili explains:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s exactly like when we analyse the actions of someone. With social networks, we must be wary of the false pretense that we are objective. There is the same type of projection at work, as we are constantly trying to assign an intent or sentiment to other people.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Self-inflicted pain<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Before the era of super connectivity, when a breakup went south it was still possible (in extreme cases) to spy on the person who abandoned you. Such is the traditional definition of stalking: wait at the exit of their office and apartment. This is what Rob did in the book\u00a0High Fidelity<\/a>. In this case there was the risk of appearing like a freak. Today, generation Y can indulge in their perverse behavior without fear of crossing society\u2019s taboo. From the safety of their homes, the singleton can spy on multiple profiles. If one has a smartphone, he can even conveniently stalk his ex on his way to work. There is nobody to stop these delinquent actions and no police can intervene in this unhealthy addiction. Nobody will know about this secret obsession.<\/p>\n

We are free to indulge in self-inflicted pain.\u00a0\u201cI know that her new boyfriend is on Twitter. I try with all my willpower not to look at his timeline. It\u2019s hard to know that you can follow their relationship. It\u2019s pretty painful. It\u2019s because of Twitter I know who replaced me.\u201d <\/em>Louis is playing with fire, and once burned decides to treat his wound with gasoline and put his hand back into the flames. Besides strength of character issues, he has no solution for how to stop torturing himself. The timeline is in the public domain, accessible with one click. \u201cBefore we could naturally lose touch with an ex. It\u2019s a shame.\u201d<\/em> Louis is not finished with his pyromaniac impulses. For Antonio Casilli, it is not simply\u00a0\u201can extension of relationship distress.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

It is the same thing in reality but the mode is different. There is a very strong desire, and the Internet permits people to act on these feelings. The web changes the rules in the game of love, to take Meetic\u2019s slogan.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Extreme stalker 2.0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The more vicious and desperate can take their heartbreak even further on Spotify or LastFm.\u00a0\u201cI started by removing her playlist from my account,\u201d<\/em> said Joseph after he was rejected, but then a morbid curiosity overtook him.\u00a0\u201cI was regularly on her profile to know the artist and songs she was listening to the most. It was a disturbing pseudo relationship \u00a0that exhilarated me. When she was sad, that made me happy. When the titles were more catchy and joyful, it had the opposite effect on me.\u201d<\/em> It was an extreme and sadomasochistic\u00a0form of stalking.<\/p>\n

Facebook, Twitter, Spotify and Foursquare reinforces the links that need to be severed in the event of a breakup. Even if real communication is not replaced by virtual, the latter does maintain a pretense of the relationship. Antonio Casillas advises that there needs to be two breaks:\u00a0\u201cThe two breaks are intertwined. The first is the actual breakup, which should be in person or over the telephone. The second break is the severing of online ties: Blocking the person on MSN, defriending on Facebook, etc\u2026The third phase is to stop viewing the ex\u2019s profile page. It is a voluntary act to search for information, yet in our environment full of digital traces sometimes these bits of information come to us.<\/em><\/p>\n

And for those who absolutely need to know, a few crafty designers created a Facebook application that notifies you immediately when your ex is back on the market \u2013 definitely not a tool to help with the moving on stage. The\u00a0breakup notifier<\/a> attracted nearly 3 million people before\u00a0being deleted at the request of Facebook<\/a>. Dan Loeenhers, the creator of this bizarre application, asserts that it was for the user\u2019s benefit.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s really a practical thing. If you\u2019re going to refresh someone\u2019s page 20 times a day, why not have an alert on it?\u201d<\/em> Why not? Now you just have to spend your time frantically refreshing your mail. Very practical.<\/p>\n

* The names have been modified.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared on OWNI, 7 March, 2011. \u201cRobert, I am leaving you.\u201d In the initial moments after, all Robert could do was replay those words in his head until all the tears he could muster had spilled from his broken heart. Once the shock settled, he could throw himself into the comfort of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":559,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9967,10290,9950],"tags":[942,269,10374,99,120,423],"class_list":["post-1832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-repost","category-cyborgology","tag-facebook","tag-love","tag-owni","tag-relationships","tag-sex","tag-social-networking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/559"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1832"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3057,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1832\/revisions\/3057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}